"Assassin"ation of character

Nester
Sat, 04 Jun 2011 20:23:57 +0000

Even if this is a very small college, why can’t the girl walk away from the group? I can see wanting the bully to stop bad-mouthing her all over town, but why would she seek to re-establish a relationship with someone like this? If this is, in fact, all going on within a small living group, such as a co-op or a sorority to which she is committed for next year, it might make sense to bring in an outside grown-up (since it would appear we are dealing with kids who haven’t made that leap yet), such as the dean connected with the pan-Hellenic council, to assist with some sort of intervention. Hopefully an intervention in which the girl who is being bad-mouthed can say something on the order of “I have lost respect for you. I believe that your behavior has been hurtful and out of control, and that it’s been slanderous.” This would certainly beat apologizing up and down and losing respect for herself.